The Alternative Press Center

The Alternative Press Center (APC) is a non-profit collective dedicated to providing access to and increasing public awareness of the alternative press. Founded in 1969, it remains one of the oldest self-sustaining alternative media institutions in the United States. For more than a quarter of a century, the Alternative Press Index has been recognized as a leading guide to the alternative press in the United States and around the world.

The APC Blog

AlternativePressCentre

"An Unexpected Mortality Increase in the United States Follows Arrival of the Radioactive Plume From Fukushima: Is There A Correlation?"
by Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman
Initial signs of the global health impact of the Fukushima disaster in the United States.
<http://www.radiation.org/reading/pubs/HS42_1F.pdf>
"North Korea's Justifiable Anger"
by Stansfield Smith
An anti-imperialist perspective on US conflict with North Korea.
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/10/north-koreas-justifiable-anger/>

Tuesday, 30 June 2009

Weekly Audit: Radical Inequality Fueled the Wall Street Meltdown

by Zach Carter, Media Consortium MediaWire Blogger

Now that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner isn't going to impose pay restrictions on bailed out Wall Street executives, it's critical to remember that severe economic inequality was a major factor in the financial meltdown. Our tax code funnels money into the hands of our wealthiest citizens, which means that our financial system protects the interests of the affluent—not the the average citizen. The broad divergence between our core democratic values and the existing U.S. economic structure must become part of the public debate over financial reform.

As Les Leopold notes in a roundtable discussion with GritTV's Laura Flanders, much of the Wall Street meltdown can be traced to a steady redistribution of wealth to the wealthy dating back to the Reagan years. Poor people, after all, do not have money to invest in the Wall Street speculation machine. By 2007, the financial world accounted for over 40% of U.S. corporate profits, an astounding percentage for a business intended to facilitate the operation of other industries. According to Leopold, we need to find constructive ways to

Tuesday, 23 June 2009

The Indypendent

After studying forensic psychology at John Jay College
for the past seven years, Karla could be making $30-40 per hour in her
chosen field. Instead, Karla, 25, pursues her Masters by day and toils
by night as a waitress paid off the books at a Mexican restaurant in
Brooklyn. She hopes that Congress will finally pass the DREAM Act this
year, which would provide an education-based path to citizenship for
herself and hundreds of thousands of other young people who were
brought to the U.S. as child immigrants by their undocumented parents.

“I have to study,” said Karla, who immigrated from Mexico with her
mother when she was eight and has no close family ties in her native
country. “I have nothing else to look forward to except to waitress for
the rest of my life.”

COAL RIVER VALLEY, W. VA – At 5:00AM this morning
14 concerned citizens entered onto Massey Energy’s mountaintop removal
mine site near Twilight WV. Four of them scaled a 150-foot dragline and
unfurled a 15×150 foot banner that said, “Stop Mountaintop Removal
Mining”. The climbers were on the enormous dragline, a massive piece
of equipment that removes house-sized chunks of blasted rock and earth
to expose coal, and remained there for over three hours. Meanwhile nine
others deployed a 20×40 foot banner on the ground at the site which
read, “Stop Mountaintop Removal: Clean Energy Now”.

Jean-Michel Costes, director of the French monitoring center for drugs and drug addiction, presents the results of the 2008 ESCAPAD survey. Conducted with 40,000 French seventeen-year-olds, the survey allows us to examine the consumption habits of the nation’s youth.

What trends did you notice in the habits of teenagers?
We noticed little change, not even a decline in regular usage of marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol. The report is generally positive despite some worrisome subjects, such as occasional drunkenness, which saw a slight increase in frequency from last year.

How can you explain this increase?
Pleasure and ease of use are the most widespread motives for [...]More

Friday, 12 June 2009

News from the French Press

“The State must police distribution
companies”

From La libération

While the French National Federation
of Farmers' Unions plans to block supermarket supply entrances in order to protest
the profit margins of mass distributors (particularly on milk and dairy
products), an interview with Dominique Barrau, assistant secretary general of
the agricultural labor association, aids in our analysis of the motives of the
opposition.

What is the shape that you’re going
to give to your protest?

There will be between one and two
blocked sites per region for 48 hours. The
Grand-Ouest